The view of Roger D. Winemiller, who lost two children to drug overdoses, that the solution to the drug epidemic is tougher penalties, while understandable, is misguided.

As a former prosecutor, including time as a narcotics prosecutor, I can only conclude that the war on drugs is unwinnable. What good did tough narcotics laws do the Winemiller children? Would the results be better if sometimes draconian laws were made even more draconian?

Certainly, the senior Mr. Winemiller might feel better at first if the people who sold his dead children heroin were locked up with the key thrown away, but would anything really change?

How about treating drug use and abuse as a medical problem, not a criminal one? Society needs to realize that people like me who argue that all drugs should be legalized do not suggest that drugs are good, but only recognize the reality that the decades-long war on drugs — in which I played a small part during the age of crack which I now regret — can never be won.

As President Trump said on the campaign trail in a different context: What do you have to lose?

MICHAEL G. BRAUTIGAMCINCINNATI

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: A Family Tragedy, and an Unwinnable Drug War. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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